Chapter 130 — Azure Rainbow Blood Deity

Blue light coiled and flickered, waning and flaring by turns; a hundred and ninety million azure needle-like rays of light were wrapped inside a pale red qi-shield fully three zhang across. The azure needle-rays wove back and forth, each needle of blue light bearing countless tiny talisman-seals all but invisible to the naked eye. Zhou Xuan wore a faint smile, his hand-seals shifting from time to time; as the azure needle-rays darted to and fro and struck the pale red shield, they were rebounded without inflicting the slightest harm.

As his hand-seals moved, Zhou Xuan saw clearly: these azure needle-rays numbered one hundred and ninety-six thousand, seven hundred and forty-two in all, and every one was a blue steel needle some three cun long, each needle empowered with a hundred and eight talisman-utterances. Every needle was a system unto itself, and yet among them lurked a peculiar, faintly perceptible connection.

Gradually, as the azure steel needles wove back and forth, their motion grew regular, dimly forming the shape of a slender three-chi sword; but whenever the sword was on the verge of condensing into solid form, the hundred and eight talismans on each blue needle began to repel one another, and the needles scattered into chaos once more. Amid those hundred thousand azure steel needles, a slender white figure could be faintly seen, arms ceaselessly wheeling as she formed and pressed her seals.

With every drift of her seal-craft, the hundred thousand azure steel needles reformed into the slender blue sword; and with each scattering and re-forming, the blue sword grew ever clearer, and the time it endured grew ever longer.

"It should be soon now!" Zhou Xuan murmured to himself. Around the vast pale red shield stood twelve giant command banners.

Each banner was three zhang tall; upon the thick, pitch-black shafts countless hideous, uncanny faces swam in and out of view. What cloth the banner-faces were made of, none could say—neither silk nor hemp, neither silver nor gold—they were of a dark, dim red, somewhat like congealed blood, yet never quite dry.

The twelve dark red banner-faces were painted all over with strange and ferocious beasts, gods, and demons, every one of them savage of visage and colossal of form: some with serpent heads on human bodies, black horns jutting from their skulls, treading two dragons beneath their feet; some with human faces and beast bodies, vast wings sprouting from their backs; some a towering white skeleton bristling all over with sharp, keen bone-spurs—what ancient beast of the primordial world that might be, no one could tell.

The beasts, gods, and demons on the twelve great banners were each different; the dark red banner-faces stirred in a windless breeze, and in their stirring were endlessly soft. Those terror-shaped beasts and demons seemed alive, straining to leap forth, each wearing the look of something about to spring out and choose a man to devour; and with those savage, murderous shapes, they could well have frightened a man to death where he stood.

Only because each giant banner, following Zhou Xuan's seals, shot out a thin thread of pale red blood-light that split and spread did so vast a pale red shield take shape and pen those hundred thousand fierce, keen steel needles within its space; otherwise, to judge by the momentum of those azure needles, they would surely have scattered and shot off at every split, gone without a trace.

A soft cry went up from the lips of the slender white figure wrapped in the azure needles and came straight to Zhou Xuan's ear. He seemed to let out a faint breath of relief. The white figure's wheeling hand-seals and mantric seals abruptly sped up more than tenfold; the interweaving needles, at that cry, rushed together into a slender blue longsword, and countless seals flew from her hands straight onto the blue blade. Then a streak of blood-drops too was imprinted upon the hilt. The blue longsword, wrought of one hundred and ninety-six thousand, seven hundred and forty-two steel needles, at last no longer flew apart. It gave a long cry that shook the heavens, and sword-qi burst fiercely skyward from the blade; a hundred million keen sword-qi strokes struck full upon the inner wall of the pale red shield.

Zhou Xuan saw it all, yet was not alarmed. His fiery red Golden Crow of the Nine Suns Dharma-robe gave a slight billow; the dharma-power he fed through his hand-seals deepened by a degree, and the pale red blood-light shot from the twelve giant banners at once grew three parts thicker and more viscous. The great pale red shield sagged slightly inward, and like a leviathan drawing in water, it drank every last drop of that fierce, keen sword-qi, not a trickle left.

His seals changed again: the twelve giant command banners shrank swiftly into three-cun flags and dropped into Zhou Xuan's palm, and the great pale red shield vanished with them. There in the field stood a slender woman in a moon-white long gown, cloud-white shoes on her feet, a slender blue longsword in her hand, drifting and elusive; the two together made her look for all the world like a goddess descended to earth.

"Husband, you told me this Azure Rainbow Sword was wonderful beyond words—well, I don't see much to it. Its burst of sword-qi couldn't even pierce your light-shield, and I went to such pains to refine it!" Yun Xiuzi's face was all smiles, radiant with health; her two eyes, deep as the stars, cast a light no one could meet, and her whole body seemed now visible, now not, obscure and hard to fix—there was about her the drifting feel of white clouds, plainly the mark of cultivation advanced to an exceedingly high realm.

"The Azure Rainbow Sword is the supreme immortal sword with which the ancients warded off demons and guarded their persons. It is formed of one hundred and ninety-six thousand, seven hundred and forty-two Taixu Dharma-needles; it may divide or gather, and defense and attack are one in it. Its might is not below the Purple and Azure Twin Swords, the treasure that guards Mount Shu. Call it a flying sword if you like, but in truth it belongs among dharma-treasures. Your Cloud-Glow Deity-Quelling Cord is strong in attack, but its flaws are great, and it is far from a match for this Azure Rainbow Sword. You have only just refined it, and have not yet reached the realm of driving the sword with the spirit; naturally the power you can draw out is still very small."

Zhou Xuan looked across at Yun Xiuzi and explained. As for the way Yun Xiuzi addressed him, Zhou Xuan was quite at a loss whether to laugh or cry. Ever since Zhou Xuan had drawn back Yun Xiuzi's memories of three lives from the Six Paths of Rebirth and dissolved her karmic entanglements, things had changed: with two śarīra of Buddhist masters who had tempered Arhat golden bodies as the foundation, and no small store of precious spirit-medicines taken from the ox-headed Yin divinity Zhou Xuan had slain, one Qian Yuan Bone-Transforming Pill had gone down, and Yun Xiuzi's primal essence was not only condensed and strengthened—her very flesh was reborn. In one step she went from a cultivator of mid Spirit-Transformation to a Daoist of high attainment newly entered upon the Return-to-Void realm. Such a leap in cultivation would ordinarily drive a cultivator to qigong deviation and madness, but Zhou Xuan had dissolved her karmic entanglement and stood guard over her, and she passed through it all in perfect safety.